Sod Furniture, Grass Furniture or Organic Furniture

I see that it was way back in 2006 that I discovered some pictures of sod furniture and put them on my own blog. I am guessing that some of you might like to see what wonderful things some creative people are doing with a mound of dirt and some rolls of turf.

I believe that credit can be given to Greg Tate for coming up with the idea. He is responsible for these beauties:

Cornell University has done quite a bit of work in this area, including a video series. This is the first, which is a time-lapse video:



This page has many more videos in the series: Cornell University Living Sculpture, and these pages have more info and links.

For those of you considering making a piece of sod sculpture, I suggest that you visit Cornell's blog, as they have also followed it up with an article title Sod Furniture Revisited: Some Lessons Learned

Instructions for a sod chair can also be found at the bottom of this page at Rumble Pie.

What fun!!!

Willow Elephants in England

The Brits are miles ahead of us in North America, when it comes to the use of willows for sculpture (though Patrick Doherty and Alastair Heseltine are two notable exceptions).

Here is my latest discovery, from a post that is no long available on The Guardian's website:

"A herd of life-size wicker elephants arrives in Hyde Park today for a two-week stay. The 13 elephants are specially commissioned by charity elephant family, which is working with the Royal Parks Foundation and The World Land Trust to raise awareness about habitat protection projects in the UK and India. Here we chart the elephants' journey from the workshop to the banks of the Serpentine."

 
There are 9 more photos on The Guardian's website, including some of how the elephants were constructed. There are a few more interesting details on the BBC website.

On our website, I have more links to artists who are creating willow scuptures.

How to Build a Living Willow Dome

When Harriet sent pictures of her living willow structure, I was so impressed that I asked if I could put them on our blog. She not only agreed but sent along a wonderful set of instructions! Thanks Harriet!

Building a Willow House

"Coming from England, I have seen and admired Willow structures for a number of years thinking one day I would build one myself. Having our children rekindled the idea and I searched for a place to find the Willow rods. I finally found Bluestem and ordered my rods for delivery in Spring this year! I ordered 50 rods in total. This is what we did...

What you need:

• Willow rods
• Garden twine
• Weed membrane
• 12" Planting Dibber or stick to make holes in the ground
• Compost
• Bag of Flour!

Step 1
Pick a spot about 40' away from your house or any other structure/building and lay down a membrane to make the floor of the house. Our floor was 8ft square and the rods I think were 8'-9' long.
Note: due to US Post Office shipping restrictions, we ship rods 84" long; in Canada 200cm.

Step 1

Step 2
Find the center of the floor and use a piece of twine and the dibber as a guide while you make a circle using the bag of flour :-)

Step 2

Step 3
Decide where the door will be and choose some sturdy rods to make a doorway (wider than your shoulders so big people can get in too!). Make two holes in the ground through your flour circle with the dibber (about 10"-12" deep) and place your rods in for the doorway. Bend the rods into a cross and twist/weave together.

Step 3

Step 4
Select 6 more strong rods and place them in the ground at equal distances around the circle pointing straight up.

Steps 4 and 5

Step 5
In between each upright rod two more rods need to be placed in the ground; one on a diagonal to the left and one on a diagonal to the right. So when you are done you should have an upright rod, a right and a left rod repeating all the way round.

Step 6
This is where you need 6 pairs of hands, the more people you have to help the better! (we did it with two adults, a three year old and a 7 month old, it was rather amusing, more adults and less kids would have been better) You need to gently bend in your rods so that they have a window about 2' round left open at the top for growth and weaving when the structure grows. While a few hands bend in the rods, another set of hands has to secure the rods in this position with twine whilst weaving the rods in between each other in a very loose basket weave type effort!!

Steps 6, 7 and 8

Step 7
Fill in any gaps you can see with left over rods. Apparently it is best to plant them on the diagonal for maximum coverage when they grow, rather than straight up.

Step 8
Once it was complete, I trimmed the flooring into a circle.

As it grows, I plan to weave in the growth at the top and eventually release the twine holding it together at the moment."

Growth during the first season, along with some happy little girls

Visit the Living Willow Structures page at Bluestem Nursery to purchase rods and for more info regarding all the neat things that you can do with willow rods.

Living Roof Bench in Alberta, Canada

Carolyn Rallison (who also makes willow baskets, which are shown on our website) sent us this picture of her latest creation - a bench with a living roof. What a talented lady she is!!

I asked Carolyn if she had anything she would like to add:

"I built the bench of spruce limbs and poplar boards. The planting box is lined with pond liner, then a layer of coco mat for drainage. The soil is lean and sandy, as soil that is too rich makes lush and lanky growth. The whole structure is 7 feet tall, 6 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. Last summer was quite dry, so I had to keep it watered; but my intention is to have it "self-sufficient"."

"I first saw and read about green roofs on the internet, then bought a book to read about the subject. I know that there are sod roofs here in Alberta, but have never heard of one with perennials. So I really wanted to give one a try. I planted with assorted perennials and a few annuals for colour: Bearberry, blue flax, alpine poppies, Alpicola primulas, hens & chicks, alpine columbine, species tulips, squill, nemesia & dwarf phlox (annuals). "

"It is just coming through its first winter, so will soon see what has survived! If nothing else, I will just plant it to drought-tolerant annuals every year. I will report on survival rates of the different plants as soon as I know."

Carolyn Rallison
Last West Gardens
Bluffton, Alberta
Zone 3

Growing Grasses in Cold Climates

If you live in Zone 4 or colder, you would be wise to consider not just the hardiness of the grass, but also whether it can be expected to bloom in your short growing season.

Warm Season Grasses

Warm season grasses tend to have more spectacular blooms, but they also bloom late in the season. If you have a short growing season they may only be just starting to bloom when a hard frost hits. Miscanthus is finished once that happens. The blooms that have opened will remain, but the leaves turn beige and no more blooms are produced.

Here is a list of warm season grasses:

• Andropogon - Big bluestem
• Bouteloua - Blue gama
• Imperata - Japanese blood grass
• Miscanthus - Maiden grass
• Panicum - Switch grass
• Pennisetum - Fountain grass
• Saccharum - Hardy pampas grass
• Schizachyrium - Little bluestem
• Sorghastrum - Indian grass
• Sporobolus - Prairie dropseed and Alkali sacaton

In a climate where the soil does not warm up until mid May or later, there will not be any signs of life from warm season grasses before then. You will be emailing us and telling us your plant(s) have not survived the winter! But they are just waiting for the soil to warm up before they send any leaves up. They thrive in hot weather.

So the use of warm season grasses means that part of your garden will look very bare well into the spring. If you have a lot of garden space planted in warm season grasses, your garden will not show any greenery before late May or maybe even well into June. In a climate with a short growing season you may feel a little cheated. Pennisetum is especially suspenseful because it is the very last to grow, waiting until well into May or even June in a Zones 4 or 5.

Cool Season Grasses

The cool season grasses are much better suited to cold climate gardens. They are in a hurry to produce offspring, so they are up and growing and blooming as quickly as they can. They like the cool weather. So they bloom early, meaning that frost won't ruin the blossoms. Many have blossoms that hang around until winter.

Here is a list of cool season grasses:

• Achnatherum - Spear grass
• Alopecurus - Golden foxtail grass
• Arrhenatherum - Bulbous oat grass
• Calamagrostis - Feather reed grass
• Carex - technically not a grass, and many are evergreen
• Chasmanthium - Northern sea oats
• Deschampsia - Tufted hair grass
• Elymus - Wheat grass or Wild rye
• Festuca - Fescue
• Helictotrichon - Blue oat grass
• Juncus - technically not a grass, and may be evergreen
• Koeleria - Hair grass
• Luzula - technically not a grass, and will probably be evergreen
• Molinia - Moor grass
• Phalaris - Ribbon grass
• Poa - Blue meadow grass
• Sesleria - Moor grass
• Stipa - Feather grass (S. brachytricha, an exception, blooms in lt Aug or Sept)

Cool season grasses, for the most part, bloom in cool weather and shut down in the heat of summer. If they are not allowed to dry out too much they continue to look good, but they are usually done blooming. Seslerias heufleriana and caerulea bloom with the daffodils!

The four champion/pretty-well-fool-proof grasses in the cool season category are:

• Calamagrostis, particularly Karl Foerster, our top-selling grass
• Deschampsia - very hardy and Goldtau is absolutely lovely
• Festuca - many to choose from
• Helictotrichon - its evergreen in most climates, so that's a real bonus!

So in climates colder than Zone 3, we recommend only cool season grasses. In Zone 3 we suggest about 80% cool season and in Zone 4 about 60% cool season grasses.

On our website we state the blooming time for a grass. The earlier blooming warm season grasses are the ones to choose in a cool climate. For instance Panicum blooms early and is hardy, so it is a good choice.

Of course we understand a gardener's love of pushing the boundaries, so these are only suggestions. Even I do it. In my Zone 5 garden with early sunset of 5pm, I have a Pampas grass that I have nursed back from near death (because I transplanted it at the wrong time!). Last year it started to look happy, but didn't bloom. Maybe, just maybe it will this year....?

Definitions Regarding Exposure

A visitor to our website asked to have clarification of our terms regarding light shade, part shade and part sun. I can see how a person could be confused. So I thought I would put the info here. It is a complex subject, but I will give it a try. 

Light shade: dappled light, such as comes through tree leaves

Part shade: shade for a good part of the day, but not all day

Part sun: receives direct sun, about 4-6 hr a day

Full sun: 6 hr of sun a day

But there is one more important factor and that is WHEN the sun is shining. If a plant receives 6 hrs of sun from 3pm until 9pm, that does not count for much, as the sun at that time is considered to not be as strong as it is at midday, from 9am to 3pm or 10am to 4pm.

Also, sun from 6am to noon is kinder than sun from 3 to 9pm because the air is cooler. So some shade plants can often take full sun (6 hr) if it is in the very early morning (east side of the house) but not during mid day, or late afternoon.

Water also plays a role. There are lots of shade plants that can take more sun, as long as they get lots of water.

After I sent this to Neils he replied "It reminds me of the understanding the all the terms the arctic aboriginals have about snow."  That sums it up rather well. They instictively understand snow, and an experienced gardener understands shade. But both are confusing to the beginner.

Starting Willow Cuttings in Paper Pots

Recently we received this wonderful information and photo from one of our customers. I asked her if I could share it on this blog.

"Last year I received willow starts from you on 4/5, kept them in the refrigerator until 4/16 when I set them up to root in vermiculite. "

"I made paper tubes of newspaper, filled with plain vermiculite, one willow stick in each tube, grouped the tubes into large plastic pots to hold them upright and keep them wet."

"It was June 7 when I was ready to plant the willows. So 7 weeks rooting in vermiculite, about 4 weeks in the house and 3 weeks outdoors in shade. This method is a good way to insure strong root development, especially if you expect a delay in planting and might miss the moist soil of early Spring."

"I usually leave the newspaper tube on when putting the plant into the soil. They're just a couple layers of paper and ready to decompose, falling apart by 7 weeks old as these plants were held a bit long."

This is a picture of a poplar, but the willow cuttings did just as well

"Look at the beautiful plant! Admittedly this was one of the fullest. They are planted to make a coppice for crafting materials. Planted in a spot selected for it's location rather than it's soil quality, we did amend the soil with mushroom compost - I am a mushroom farmer- and applied several inches of mulch in the Fall. All but one plant grew."

"I have planted hundreds of trees and it is my greatest pleasure to see the trees growing and the small creatures that make use of them."

Rebecca Miller

Thanks Rebecca!

Note: We definitely recommend keeping the newspaper on when planting, as the roots are brittle and could easily be broken off when inserting a bare root willow into the planting hole.